Awesome GNU/Linux gaming

A curated list of awesome GNU/Linux tips & tricks, games, tools, and resources. Inspired by awesome-vulkan and other awesome-related projects.

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Overview

This is a hobby project to improve the quality of gaming in Linux because it is possible to improve performance by tweaking your Linux machine. Most Linux distributions have a lot of issues when it comes to gaming performance, as they do not utilise the modern and superior counterparts.

Distributions
Utilities
Websites
Processors
- AMD
- Intel
Graphics cards
- AMD
- Nvidia
Platforms
Kernels
WINE
Emulators
Development
YouTube channels
Q&As
Future plans
Contributing
Special thanks

Distributions

Beginner

Pop!_OS

Based on Ubuntu. Attempt from System76 to "de-Canonical-ise" Ubuntu, as well as some minor tweaks for gaming.

Full ootb support for Nvidia and AMD GPUs.
Better power management built-in.
All common gaming related applications are in Pop Shop, making it trivial to install everything needed to start gaming.
64 bit Vulkan drivers are pre-installed, but Steam installation is modified to include them too just in case.
No snaps pre-installed and Pop!_Shop gives an option between .deb and flatpak for many applications.

Fedora

Community maintained distribution to provide the upstream kernel in correlation with stable packages. Comes with performance tools pre-installed such as gamemode.

Built on bleeding edge/stable model, provides a very stable experience while staying fairly up-to-date on software.
In other words, when installing drivers and libraries, you get more recent versions compared to some other distros.
When installing Steam, GameMode will be installed as well, to improve performance.

Linux Mint

The purpose of Linux Mint is to produce a modern, elegant and comfortable operating system which is both powerful and easy to use.

It works out of the box, with full multimedia support and is extremely easy to use.
It's community-driven. Users are encouraged to send feedback to the project so that their ideas can be used to improve Linux Mint.
Based on Debian and Ubuntu, it provides about 30,000 packages to install via apt.

Ubuntu

Ubuntu is the modern, open source operating system built on Linux for the enterprise server, desktop, cloud, and IoT.

Solus

A distribution made from scratch, Solus is a rolling distribution that is snappy, stable and easy to use.

Updates every Friday.
All common gaming applications are in the software center.
Nvidia drivers can be installed with a few clicks.
Completely independent from Arch and Debian.

Moderate

Arch Linux

Lightweight and independent distribution to provide as much performance with as less time spent.

Higher maintainance than Beginner distros, but comes with less pre-installed.
This provides a cleaner base, letting the user focus on installing only what they need.
This can aid lower-end systems.

openSUSE Tumbleweed

Rolling distro with openQA.
Less likely to break than Arch due to testing.
Great Nvidia support.

Advanced

Gentoo

Minimal and secure source based distribution to maximise performance.

High potential for increased stability and reduced latency of the system thanks to building everything from source and in turn adapting to user's hardware and needs per program basis.
Users with lower-end hardware may experience higher FPS in games as a result of said optimisations of the system, however this is not guaranteed and will depend highly on the hardware used.

Utilities

GameMode

A systemd daemon/lib to optimise Linux system performance on demand. — WARNING: this utility will not work in the distributions listed in the following website: Wikipedia: Linux distributions without systemd. — Video

CoreCtrl

Overclocking software with the aesthetics based on AMD's Radeon Software Adrenalin from 2018.

QMK

Keyboard firmware to customize key switches. Based on the tmk_keyboard firmware. — Video - WARNING: Flashing firmware is not a risk-free process and can result in a brick if anything goes wrong. Recovery ranges from time consuming to impossible and may even require buying extra tools.

Chiaki

Cross-platform client for PlayStation 4 Remote Play. — Video

ZeroTierOne

Programmable Ethernet switch that allows all networked devices, VMs, containers, and applications to communicate as if they all reside in the same physical data center or cloud region, similar to LogMeIn Hamachi.

Frogging-Family / community-patches

A list of patches maintained by the community.

Luxtorpeda

Steam Play compatibility tool to run games using native Linux engines.

libratbag

DBus daemon to configure input devices for gaming mice. — WARNING: this utility will not work in the distributions listed in the following website: Wikipedia: Linux distributions without systemd.

Piper
GTK+ front-end for libratbag. — WARNING: this utility will not work in the distributions listed in the following website: Wikipedia: Linux distributions without systemd.

logiops

Unofficial drivers for Logitech mice and keyboard.

Steamtinkerlaunch

SteamTinkerLaunch (short STL) is a Linux wrapper tool for use with the Steam client which allows you to easily customize start tools and options for games quickly.

Overlays

MangoHud

A Vulkan and OpenGL overlay for monitoring FPS, temperatures, CPU/GPU load and more. — Video

vkBasalt

A Vulkan post processing layer to enhance the visual graphics of games while barely impacting performance. — Video

GOverlay

A Graphical UI to manage Linux overlays, such as MangoHud and vkBasalt. — Video

Discover

Discord Overlay for Linux.

Websites

AppDB

Website maintained by WINE HQ to track reports and ratings of video games.

ProtonDB
Website maintained by a community to track reports and ratings of video games written by other users for Steam and Proton.
- ProtonDB-Tags
  A small Python script to pull ratings from ProtonDB and import them into your Steam library as tags.

GamingOnLinux

The home of Linux and SteamOS gaming. Covering Linux Gaming News, Linux Games, SteamOS, Indie Game Reviews and more.

GamingOnLinux wiki
GamingOnLinux' official wiki focusing on various topics of gaming on Linux, such as games, engines, guides and more.
GamingOnLinux Sub-Reddit
GamingOnLinux' official sub-reddit.

Boiling Steam

Covering the Linux Gaming Scene since 2014. Featuring Game Reviews, Hardware Reviews, Industry News, Trends Analysis and more.

Open Source Game Clones

A list of open source game alternatives to their proprietary counterparts.

The Linux Gamers' Game List

A list of games that work natively in Linux.

Arch Wiki / Gaming

A list of information about running games and related system configuration tips.

VR Software Status

Repository containing the status of Steam games working in Virtual Reality.

LibreGameWiki

A wiki of free games and related topics started by Han Dao.

Processors

AMD

RyzenAdj

CLI tool to adjust core clock and voltage of Ryzen processors.

Ryzen Controller
Graphical UI for RyzenAdj.

Intel

intel-power-control

A GUI tool to adjust the core clock and voltage of Intel iGPUs.

Graphics cards

Graphics drivers overview

An overview of the graphical Linux drivers.

Shaders overview

An overview of the shaders used in games in Linux.

AMD

Note: this is only for the AMDGPU drivers. We might add AMDGPU-PRO or AMDVLK specific categories later.

ACO compiler

Open source shader compiler by Valve Corporation to compete with the LLVM compiler, AMDVLK drivers drivers and Windows 10.

Overclocking

Guide to overclock an AMD GPU using the AMDGPU drivers.

AMDGPU Clocks

CLI tool to adjust the core clock, memory and voltage of AMD graphics cards.

vibrantLinux-AMD

Fork of vibrantLinux; utility that automates NVIDIA's Digitial Vibrance Control and AMD's Saturation for games. — Only for AMD GPUs.

radeon-profile

Powerful app for tuning AMD GPUs. Monitor and adjust fans, temperatures, usage, power, and core/memory clocks. Configure overclocking profiles and set custom fan curves. Watch for events (e.g. temp threshold reached, game launched) and change parameters automatically. Additional screenshots here.

radeontop

Nice monitoring tool for your GPU utilization (works with both FOSS driver and Catalyst one).

Xorg

Note: Xorg has had a lot of problems with the xf86-video-amdgpu drivers, one of them being screen tearing. It is advisable to create a custom xorg.conf file in order to remove some issues.

TearFree

Enable tearing prevention using the hardware page flipping mechanism.

FreeSync

An open source Variable refresh rate technology developed by AMD to eliminate screen tearing and reduce stuttering.

Others

If you want to explore into the Xorg configuration options, you can look into:

Nvidia

Drivers

Note: It is not advised to install the driver through the package provided from the NVIDIA website. It is better to install it through the distribution's package manager.

Debian — https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers#Installation
Arch Linux — https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA#Installation
Gentoo — https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/NVIDIA/nvidia-drivers#Installation
Fedora — https://rpmfusion.org/Howto/NVIDIA
Clear Linux — https://docs.01.org/clearlinux/latest/tutorials/nvidia.html#installation
OpenSUSE — https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_drivers

GreenWithEnvy (GWE)

GWE is a GTK system utility designed to provide information, control the fans and overclock your NVIDIA video card and graphics processor. — Only for Nvidia GPUs.

vibrantLinux

Inspired by vibranceGUI to port in Linux; utility that automates NVIDIA's Digitial Vibrance Control and AMD's Saturation for games. — Only for Nvidia GPUs.

Platforms

Steam

Video game digital distribution developed by Valve Corporation to provide games from third-party publishers. It also offers Proton (a fork of WINE) to facilitate gaming on Linux.

Lutris

Client with install scripts provided by the community to utilise applications and games without the hassle of manually setting them up.

GameHub

Unified library for all your games. It supports all games from GOG, Steam, HumbleBundle and Humble Trove.

GOG

Video game digital distribution developed by CD Projekt to provide third-party DRM-free games.

Minigalaxy
A simple GTK GOG client for Linux.

itch.io

Website for users to host, sell and download indie video games.

GameJolt

Hosting service for free and commercial video games (in browser and a downloadable client) with social functions.

BeamDog

Online-based game software program which allows players to keep their games up to date with the latest fixes and enhancements.

Legendary

CLI client to launch games from the Epic Games Store.

Heroic Games Launcher
This app is a Linux GUI for the tool Legendary.

Kernels

XanMod

A general-purpose Linux kernel aimed for performance and to provide more features.

Liquorix

A Linux kernel designed to give the optimal performance for desktop, multimedia, and gaming workloads. Only available in Debian/Ubuntu!

Tk-Glitch / PKGBUILDS / linux-tkg

A custom Linux kernel with various patchsets to improve gaming performance. — Now available for non-Arch distributions!

gloriouseggroll / kernel

Latest upstream Linux kernel in addition of the TKG patchsets. — Only available in Fedora!

sirlucjan / kernel-patches

Repository with various kernel patchsets.

Arch wiki / Kernel

Arch wiki page describing various Linux kernels.

WINE

A compatibility layer capable of running Windows applications on several POSIX-compliant operating systems such as Linux, macOS, & BSD.

WINE Staging
Development branch of WINE.

Winetricks Helper script to download and install various redistributable runtime libraries needed to run some programs in Wine.

Wine-tkg and Proton-tkg Wine and Proton build scripts from Tk-Glitch with easy customization and a plethora of regression hotfixes, patches, game optimizations, and other goodness. This is the build system used for all Lutris wine builds.

WINE implementations

vkd3d-proton

A Vulkan-based translation layer for Direct3D 12 which allows running 3D applications on Linux using Wine. Valve's fork, included with Proton and recommended over upstream vkd3d.

DXVK

A Vulkan-based translation layer for Direct3D 9/10/11 which allows running 3D applications on Linux using Wine.

D9VK
A Vulkan-based translation layer for Direct3D 9 which allows running 3D applications on Linux using Wine. It has now been merged with DXVK.

wine-wayland

A Vulkan-based translation layer for DirectX 9 & DirectX 11 to play in pure Wayland without the need of X11 or XWayland. — Only available in Arch-based distributions!

Proton

A WINE implementation from Valve Corporation to play Windows games directly from Steam Linux.

Protontricks
Extension to Winetricks for Proton enabled games.
proton-ge-custom
Fork of Proton by RedHat developer GloriousEggroll to port the latest versions of WINE in Proton.

Emulators

RetroArch

RetroArch is a frontend for emulators, game engines and media players.

taminaru / awesome-emulators-simulators

A curated list of software emulators and simulators of PCs, home computers, mainframes, consoles, robots and much more...

`mesa_glthread=true` for OpenGL

Mesa drivers flag to enable multi-threading on the Mesa drivers.

Development

ROCm

GPU-accelerated computing drivers for AMD GPUs.

μProf

Performance analysis tool for AMD for applications running on Windows and Linux operating systems.

Ogre

Cross-platform and cross-language open source engine written in C++.

Godot

2D and 3D cross-platform game engine written in C, C++.

Blender

3D computer graphics software toolset used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, motion graphics, interactive 3D applications, and computer games.

vinjn / awesome-vulkan

A curated list of awesome Vulkan libraries, debuggers and resources.

eug / awesome-opengl

A curated list of awesome OpenGL libraries, debuggers and resources.

Q&As

See Q&AS.md.

Future plans

Everything we plan to add in the future in this page will be in TODO.md.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Links to Linux Café

Special thanks

Special thanks go to:

The lutris project
the contributors that have contributed in this project;
everyone that has suggested something to add, remove or fix;
the developers and writers that have created and contributed to the awesome projects that we have mentioned;
to everyone that has shared this project to others.

This project would never have happened and continued without you :)